Handling an employee who suffers from seasonal affective disorder

Art Sankraffts worked in the purchasing department at Acme’s manufacturing plant. The purchasing function was housed on the first floor of the company’s newest, light, airy and spacious office building. The fact that the parking lot was right outside the front door made things convenient for all who worked in that LEED-certified space.

During the past five years, Art consistently identified the best product for the money and exhibited enough foresight to avoid having to pay a premium for emergency and rush orders. The fact that Art was organized and detailed minded didn’t go unnoticed. The result was a regular series of rather modest pay raises. But, Art was itching for something more, something that wasn’t so boring.

After hearing the maintenance people grumbling at lunch about scheduling snafus leading to long stretches of downtime and the rumors of relatively higher pay for plant personnel, Art realized that the planning/scheduling group in Acme’s maintenance department might be a more fun and rewarding assignment. It would be nice to see if talents developed for scheduling timely purchases might be applied to a more lucrative arena that could save the company even more money.

Acme used a distributed approach for maintenance scheduling and planning. The various trades had workstations for each scheduler, all of which were interconnected and had access to a central server and maintenance database. It was possible for the maintenance planners to confer in real time to head off problems early, but this feature was underused.

“There’s often an issue as to what is “reasonable,” both from an employer’s perspective and from the legal perspective.”

Most of the workstations were inside the bowels of the plant. The trades that didn’t have enough space for a workstation located their planners at one of the unused workstations in a bullpen area at an outside wall near the doors and windows.

But, if Art got the transfer, the only department with an opening was inside the plant. When interviewing for the job with Noel Reethanger, the maintenance manager, Art mentioned that he has seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of depression that can be triggered when working under artificial lighting instead of natural sunlight. Art identified other SAD triggers, including noise distractions, bad ventilation and a lack of appropriate light bulbs, locking desk and a coat rack.

Noel made efforts to eliminate these triggers around Art’s workstation, but didn’t reassign Art to work in the bullpen in spite of Art’s repeated requests for a change. After he began his new job, Art experienced fatigue, anxiety, racing thoughts and experienced trouble concentrating. Soon, Art requested medical leave because of an inability to concentrate, to think of the correct word and to make decisions. Art’s doctor prescribed medication and recommended a leave of absence for the next three months.

Art sent Noel two letters during the leave of absence requesting a switch to the bullpen area. During a meeting with Noel near the end of the leave, Art’s depression worsened and turned into post-traumatic stress symptomology.

Art became unable to return to work at Acme and, instead, found a job at a local bed-and-breakfast, a situation that was much less stressful. Finally, Art initiated a case against Acme under the Americans with Disability Act, citing failure to accommodate and unlawful discharge.

How could this situation have been prevented? Should employers be more flexible with employee seating arrangements? Does this case go beyond ADA intentions

A plant engineer says:

This situation could have been prevented if everyone from legislators to individuals with disabilities would realize that not everyone can be accommodated. Noel shouldn’t have placed Art in the position knowing he couldn’t function in the plant environment. Noel shouldn’t have bothered applying knowing he couldn’t function there. But as often happens, people aren’t content in the position they hold. The job they don’t have is the one they want.

To allow Art to work in the bullpen might have required another individual with disabilities that don’t allow them to work in the factory environment to have to move. Maybe there wasn’t enough room to accommodate everyone in the bullpen. The sad thing is that Art and Noel knew the facts and charged ahead into the dangerous waters of placing someone in position that required them to work in an environment where they couldn’t function. It’s likely that if Noel didn’t give Art the job, he would have sued Acme anyway alleging he was denied a position he was qualified to fill.

It sounds like when any disabled Acme employee requests a job transfer, the company should consult an attorney instead of HR. It can be difficult for people in Noel’s position (maintenance manager) to understand the laws that our legislators enact. Noel is charged with providing capacity for Acme by keeping its assets in good working order, not to know the fine points of law that deal with people’s disabilities.

The question of seating arrangements is a tricky one. Everyone wants the corner office by the window with a short walk to the parking lot. Everyone knows they deserve the best office because their presence provides the most value to the company. At some point we all need to understand that there’s only so much a company can do to accommodate everyone’s requests. Whether a company accommodates everyone’s request properly will be left up to the courts to decide.

Jeffrey L. Strasser
Bacova Guild
(540) 863-2656
strasser.jeff@bacova.com